Dream Walking - Icarus and the lacewing

The next weekly installment of my explanations for the images we created for Dream Walking.

Clue:  Friends of gardeners and lace makers.

Since our walk took you through the historic lace market area of Nottingham, where lace and textiles are still made in smaller ways, we had to have something about lace.

We asked Debbie Bryan's Studio & Shop in St Mary's Gate if we could place something to do with lace on their building.  Again, this is another instance where the business occupying the building influenced the creation of the image.

Debbie has a wonderful collection of original drawings of lace designs from historic Nottingham lace manufacturers.  Our idea reminded her of a drawing in the collection that looked a little like wings, and she showed us this drawing.

This is a draftman's drawing created by Fewkes, formerly Charles Farmer Lace, established around 1910.

I decided to use an adaptation of the lace design to create the wings of a lacewing, an insect that gardeners like because they eat the aphids that can infest plants.  This is one of my favourite images that I made, and well done to LJ for doing all the intricate cutting out!



Clue:  Don't fly too close to the sun!

Shining a torch at Icarus

Perspektiv Marketing on Stoney Street have a large, dark gateway into their building.

We spotted that their gate had a big octagonal shape in the middle that just begged for us to put an image on!

We imagined what might fit onto this octagonal shape... and came up with the idea of a sun ... by reversing the reflective image, we decided to have the silhouette of Icarus flying across a gleaming sun - very strange to see a sun glowing out at you at night!

Icarus is a character from Greek mythology, who attempted to escape from his imprisonment on the island of Crete by flying with wings constructed from wax and feathers.  But he ignored warnings from his father not to fly too close to the sun, and as he got too close to the heat of the sun it melted the wax that held his feathers together and he plunged to the earth.

We liked the image here by these big imposing gates which perhaps suggested imprisonment in this dark corner, but our Icarus was escaping!  I also like the imaginative link with Perspektiv Marketing, who use their own creative solutions to aim to fly high!  But not too high, I hope...

Dream Walking - Wendy and Adam

Continuing my weekly explanation of the ideas behind the images for our Dream Walk.


Clue:  Wendy, Wendy, when you are sleeping in your silly bed, you might be flying with me saying funny things to the stars instead.

A flying girl appeared in the window of Tanners on Pelham Street.

This is one of my favourite images, and one of the early ideas that set us off on linking images to the theme of flying.

Just underneath the windows is a plaque, commemorating that J M Barrie, the writer of Peter Pan, used to work as a journalist in this building in 1883, as a writer for the Nottingham Journal.

He may even have sat at his desk, staring out of that particular window and imagining the image of Wendy escaping out of the window and flying off into the night.

Clue:  The Creation of Adam

We wanted to create something for the Adams Building, now used by New College Nottingham.

Though not strictly about flying, in Michelangelo's famous depiction of the Creation of Adam, the image of God appears to be floating through the sky as he approaches the figure of Adam to give him life.

The Creation of Adam ties in with the building itself, with Adam and creating as themes.  Named after its original owner, Thomas Adam, a great lace manufacturer and Christian philanthropist, the building is considered one of the finest and largest surviving Victorian lace warehouses in the country.  Built between 1854 and 1874 in stages, the building has an Italian influence and many decorative details, including relief depictions of trade and travel, demonstrating its links to international trade.

The building became neglected and was in a bad state when the Lace Market Heritage Trust decided to restore it to house a Further and Higher Education College there, New College Nottingham.  CPMG Architects, another one of the local businesses who supported our Dream Walk with the use of their offices for one of our works, designed the restoration.


I really like the fact that New College Nottingham uses the building for textile courses, amongst other things, thereby connecting back to the building's original heritage in the lace industry.

There is another connection here to our image.  Where we placed it, to one side of a door on St Mary's Gate, appears a painted Manufacturers Only sign - with a hand pointing.  We placed Adam's hand so that it would point to it!

Dream Walking on Friday!

Our first curated walk Dream Walking is taking place this Friday!

LJ has checked all the sites for our interventions, Jo has labelled all the torches and has a box full of printed maps, and we are ready to go!

All the events for Light Night are listed in the brochure, you can download it here.

We will be handing out our maps and torches from 6 to 9.30pm.

See you there!

Designs to dream

In one of our interventions for our Dream Walking event for Light Night, we are incorporating an adaption from this beautiful original draftsman's drawing of Nottingham lace.  Our walk takes place in part of the historic Lace Market area of Nottingham, so we thought it important to make this link.

This drawing was created by Fewkes, formerly Charles Farmer Lace, established around 1910 in Mapperley, Nottingham.  The lace drawing is part of a collection of original lace drawings available from Debbie Bryan Studio & Shop, 18 St Mary's Gate, The Lace Market, Nottingham, and still inspiring lace designs today.  Click here for Debbie Bryan's website and visit her heritage pages to find out more about lace in Nottingham, then and now!

We will be posting on this blog the story behind some of our other clues following the event.

Come along on Friday 10th February between 6pm and 9.30pm to pick up your map and torch from us and follow our clues to find all eleven of our interventions....  You will find us in the High Street by Barclays Bank.

See you there!

All the events and artists' commissions, including our Dream Walking event, are now listed on the Light Night website here.

Dream Walking takes place from 6 to 9.30pm.

See you there!

Realising our dream...

Plans for Dream Walking, our first walk to take place in Nottingham on 10th Feb 2012 as part of Nottingham's Light Night, are coming on really well.

We have been planning where we can install our secret interventions around the streets of the city, it's a lot of fun poking our noses into dark spaces and wondering if we're getting caught on cameras!

Everybody we have spoken to has been really supportive and quite excited about our project, and we would especially like to thank all the following local businesses who are helping us to realise our first walk:
Waterstones books, NG Chartered Surveyors, CPMG Architects, Debbie Bryan Studio & Shop, New College Nottingham, Perspektiv Marketing Group, Old Angel Inn, Tanners Chartered Surveyors, Valuers and Estate Agents and Nottingham City Council.

"In one respect, at least, I may boast of a resemblance to the simplicity of the ancient sages:  I pursue my meditations on foot."

John Thelwall, The Peripatetic, 1793

Dream Walking

We are pleased to announce that Sidelong's first walk will take place in Nottingham as part of Light Night festival.

Light Night is a national festival that celebrates individual cities' identities through hosting a variety of participatory night-time performances, installations and events. This year it will take place in Nottingham on February 10th 2012.

During our walks around Nottingham we have discovered many unusual and hidden places. In our new commission, 'Dream Walking', you can also explore the city in new ways. We will provide you with a torch and a map so you can find our glowing dream images in forgotten dark corners.

Here are a few interesting images of Nottingham...